Bulgarian Folk Songs

Description

Bulgarian Folk Songs is the most important National Revival-era compilation of Bulgarian folk material. Gathered and edited by Dimitrii Miladinov (1810–62) and his brother Konstantin (1830–62), the work contains folk songs, riddles, games, and proverbs from both the western and eastern parts of Bulgaria. The Miladinovs were born in Struga (in present-day Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) in what was then the Ottoman Empire. With its 665 songs, Bulgarian Folk Songs had a strong influence on Bulgarian literature and culture as well as on the development of Slavic folklore studies as an academic discipline. The brothers were arrested for allegedly spreading pan-Slavist ideas in the Ottoman Empire, and both died of typhus in 1862 while imprisoned in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). Both Bulgaria and FYROM claim the Miladinovs as important national literary figures.